


Keeper of Time

by ThisThatAndTheOther



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, father/son relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-30
Updated: 2014-01-30
Packaged: 2018-01-10 13:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1160412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisThatAndTheOther/pseuds/ThisThatAndTheOther
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A mainspring is a spiral piece of metal ribbon used as a power source in clockwork mechanisms. If precautions are not taken the spring can release suddenly, causing serious injury.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Keeper of Time

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a piece of meta written by tumblr user leelajoy716

His father had enormous hands that were wide and rough and at odds with the miniscule scale of his work. The very same hand that could bend to fit into the case of a pocket watch and set its delicate gearheads into place could crush the outer shell of a walnut to pieces. When Thomas was young he would lose his own hand in the closed palm of his father’s and marvel at the strength and warmth in those enveloping digits.

His father was a severe man but who loved his family dearly.

He was practical – a man who wanted to pass down to his sons concrete lessons. Moments in life became examples to study, and if the lesson wasn’t understood the first time, then it would be taught a second, a third, and a fourth.

Because life was unfair but you persevere.

When Thomas was too slow to compliment his mother’s cooking, he would be sent to bed without supper; If he indulged his brother’s horseplay when he was collecting coke, his father would upend the wheelbarrow and force Thomas to clean it; if ever Thomas came home crying – bruised and heartbroken by the other lads at school – his father would give him something real to cry about.

But sometimes – those rare times – his father would smile over his young son’s cleverness,  and Thomas would feel like the only boy in the universe. The gleam in his father’s eye reflected understanding and affection, and through his gaze Thomas could see himself as valued – as significant – and one day bound for greatness.

In an importance and a special providence of his own making Thomas started to believe, even if by his thirteenth birthday his father did not; and only his mother was sad to see him leave the family home for service.

His father was the mainspring of a pocket watch, coiled tightly around its axle. His force turned the hands of the clock, whose resonating tick was the heartbeat of their home.

 _There are special tools with which you handle such a piece_ , his father had said one day.  _For they hold considerable tension and could release suddenly, snapping your little fingers. But if you hold a winding key with the click back, you can protect yourself, Thomas. Just as you wind it, you can unwind it; you’re always in control._

And with these lessons, Thomas left the metronome of his father behind and turned to the monolith of Downton — never to be a cog but a keeper of time, protected from its machinations.


End file.
